Beauty and the Beast

Anthropoid

I hate him. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him. Reinhard Heydrich. That blond haired, blue eyed, flagpole of a bastard who defiles my sister like it's his right.
I pushed my food aimlessly around on my plate, my thoughts chasing each other in angry circles. It had been two days since i had received a mournful telegram from my mother that the Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia had had his men kidnap my sister so he could use her for his sick, twisted purposes, and that the whole house and all its inhabitants were under close watch by the Gestapo, the secret state police. My stomach had roiled painfully when I saw the word "rape" on the brown paper. All I could think was, Where is she now? What is he doing to her?
Sophie was ten years younger than me. For as long as I could remember, I had always taken the responsibility of having a little sister with the utmost seriousness. I had tried my best to be not just a good older brother but also a sort of father figure to Sophie after our father died when she was three.
"Are you still thinking about that telegram?" My friend and comrade, Jan Kubis, looked up from his task of meticulously cutting his slab of beef Wellington into bite-size pieces. When I didn't answer and continued to chase bits and pieces of food around on my plate, he sighed. "We're going to kill the man who is corrupting your sister. And you've been earmarked as the man who will be the most responsible out of the two of us. You just need to be patient."
Jan would have never known what was happening to my family back in the Czech Republic if he hadn't been outside the barracks getting a drink of water the day I got the telegram and stormed out nearly in tears, the offending piece of paper clutched tightly in my left hand. He had intercepted me and read the telegram while I sat on a pile of extra flak vests and cried like a girl. My tears hadn't been those of sadness, they were ones of rage and despondency. The fact that I couldn't protect my own sister against a cold blooded rapist like him effectively emasculated me.
I began to smash my fork down into a pile of steamed green beans on my plate, watching the liquid from the vegetables gush out from beneath them. For a moment, I imagined I could see Heydrich's face in the pile. I could see his emotionless blue eyes staring back at me through the pile of now destroyed legumes. I brought my fork down harder and faster, watching the silver tines puncture those cerulean orbs in which I saw nothing but evil.

Jan's hand came down on top of mine, wresting the fork away from me and swapping plates with me, handing me a spoon instead. I looked at him in utter confusion; he gave me a firm, resolute glance in return. I lowered my head, staring at the perfectly cut up pieces of meat on my--Jan's--plate. Before the telegram, I had tried my hardest to distinguish myself from my comrades during our training program because of a strong sense of national pride. I felt I needed to do something--or help others in doing something--that could liberate our country from these barbaric German invaders. Although not much news reached us Czechs in London from the Czech Republic itself, the news we did receive was bleak and grim, and only seemed to get worse as the months passed.

I chased a piece of meat around the rim of my plate and finally caught it on the end of my spoon. It had cooled significantly. I slid my gaze sideways at Jan, who was now deep in conversation with the chief of intelligence service and our host, Frantisek Moravec. He was spooning lumps of mashed green beans into his mouth without a care in the world, like it was the most natural thing to do to eat your friend's mauled food. I felt the urge to laugh at the contents of what was once my plate--chunks of mashed potatoes and gravy which I had unsuccessfully tried to form into balls I could roll around the white porcelain, the remnants of a filet mignon which I had had to force myself to eat at the beginning of the meal out of courtesy to our host, and of course the pile of mutilated green beans.

Moravec was alternating between conversation with Jan and an aide who stood next to him, a sheaf of papers clutched tightly to his chest. I seized Jan's fork and began to shovel pieces of meat into my mouth, chewing with a bit more gusto than I ought to in a bid to distract myself from the harsh reality. Whatever drive I had to carry out this operation, Operation Anthropoid, no longer stemmed from national pride or a sense of duty to the Czech people. Yes, that was important, but I had a more personal vendetta against our target. I desperately wanted to kill him. I wanted to tackle him to the ground and crush his throat with my bare hands. I wanted to kill him slowly, to drag his death out for as long as I could. I wanted to watch the light fade from his eyes.